Distributed ledgers provided in, for example, a peer-to-peer network, such as the distributed ledger used in the Bitcoin cryptocurrency system, rely on a consensus system agreed upon by participants on the peer-to-peer network in order to add blocks of data to the distributed ledger. In such systems, participants examine proposed data blocks in order to verify that they conform to a network agreed standard, rather than relying on a third-party trusted central authority to authorize the addition of data. Such a system is known to those skilled in the art as a blockchain.
Blockchains are of interest to manufacturers of Internet of Things devices, such as but not limited to: smart meters, network connected sensor devices, connected cars, wearable smart devices, connected fitness monitors, connected locationing devices, connected thermostats, smart speakers, smart locks, medical devices, smart home appliances, smart thermostats, connected surveillance cameras, connected kitchen appliances, as a blockchain may be used to record data from such devices or appliances for retrieval by an interested party in a decentralized manner, that is, without requiring a centralized database or other data store and an associated company or organization to manage said centralized database or other data store.
Blockchains are also of interest to other parties generating and distributing attributable data, for example but not limited to: credit rating services producing credit-worthiness data, trading services producing financial and exchange data, identity proving services, organizations producing or processing medical data, and organizations producing research data. Again, the interest is due to the decentralized nature of blockchains and the absence of a need for a central authority.
In a centralized system there is by default a central authority, which may allow or deny access to specific data by various parties using the system.
However, centralized systems have a number of problems. The central authority may have access to or the ability to gain access to and read the data in the system. Furthermore, central authorities usually charge for their services, resulting in higher costs for users of the system. Finally, the central authority may have the power to arbitrarily exclude or expel users from the system, or may even shut down the entire system.
It is therefore the intention of the present disclosure to address the problem of ensuring that an owner of data may correctly authorize or revoke access to said data produced by a data generator for use by a consumer of the data in a decentralized fashion without recourse to a central authority.